In class yesterday, our professor was using the example of the presence of mafias in certain countries to indicate a weak rule of law. So we covered the usual suspects – Italy, Russia, China and some Eastern European countries. Then the professor asked, “Does the US have a mafia?” Some people said yes, in the …
Month: January 2009
Thanks to a fellow techy classmate, I was tempted to install Windows 7 beta, which is free for now, on my MacBook Pro. Earlier I would not have done this. It would be sacrilege! Macs are self-sufficient! But then I learnt that: 1) I could not run regressions using Excel macros, which are no longer …
2009’s come so quickly that I haven’t even written anything retrospective, or come up with resolutions. But here are highlights / what I liked about 2008: **January 2008** – [Gave a farewell speech to my ex-boss.](http://vantan.org/archives/2008/01/farewell_speech.php) – [Met Dick Lee!](http://vantan.org/archives/2008/01/beauty_world_th.php) – [Went to southern China](http://vantan.org/archives/2008/01/day_1_guangzhou.php) to visit the homes of my dad’s and mum’s ancestors …
Just as I was about to drive home from school today, I received a missed call from an unfamiliar number. Normally I do not return such calls, as often it’s a case of ‘wrong number’. But this time I decided to call back. The voice at the other end of the line called out my …